August 5, 2024
When her father Emman passed away, his estranged daughter Ella (Gabby Padilla) went over from the Philippines to Japan to pay her respects. She was brought by her aunt Maita (Sheryl Ichikawa) and her husband Sada (Satoshi Nikaido) to meet the second wife Atsuko (Reiko Kataoka) and her half-sister Reina (Arisa Nakano). Things were frosty at first between the half-sisters, especially when lawyer Nishi (Sho Yakumaru) read out their late father's will.
Gabby Pineda is back after her acclaimed performance in "Gitling" from Cinemalaya last year, where she played the translator of a Japanese film director. Nihongo plays another significant role in her new Cinemalaya film this year. This whole film was set in Japan, so everyone else was speaking in Japanese, except Pineda's Ella. This language barrier further accentuated the isolation that her character felt in the midst of a new family whom she just met.
As Pineda portrayed Ella, she came across as very cold on the big screen. As a viewer, it was difficult for me to connect emotionally with Ella, especially with that American accent she was speaking English with, which further made her character feel more inaccessible. By being aloof with Reina, Ella was trying her best to project strength and independence, and Pineda succeeded to make that bitterly and disdainfully clear.
Playing opposite Pineda is young Japanese actress Arisa Nakano, in her feature film follow-up after playing the lead character's niece in Wim Wenders's Oscar-nominated film "Perfect Days" (2023). Her Reina was more deeply affected by her father's death, owing to a traumatic experience they both shared in the past. Nakano was able to make us feel Reina's pain that she had been bottling up. Her breakdown scene with the paints was heartbreaking.
Writer-director Jaime Pacana II crafted a beautiful Japanese aesthetic for his feature film debut. Those scenes outside the Iwate Tsunami Memorial in Rikuzentakata were suffused with zen balance and symmetry, in contrast with the devastating 2011 disaster the museum (and this film) commemorated. Pacena included a subplot about a pregnancy which felt contrived at first, but he was able to turn it around and make it work in the end. 7/10.
Who is actor Pineda, do you mean Padilla ?
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